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PHY/CSE 090: How Might Quantum Computing Change the World?

Fall 2025 Library guide for Big Question seminar: How Might Quantum Computing Change the World?

Books

Databases

Characteristics:

  • Pertain to a particular discipline
  • Often contain scholarly sources, known as peer-reviewed articles
  • Articles are written and reviewed by experts in the field
  • Academic audience
  • Showcase original research

Examples:

Characteristics:

  • Cover numerous topics
  • May contain multiple types of sources (e.g. popular, trade, scholarly)
  • Audience = educated readership

Examples:

Characteristics:

  • Written by columnists, journalists, and/or reporters
  • Coverage = current events
  • Articles written at 8th grade reading level

Examples:

Search Engines

Search engines and databases may feel similar in many ways, but differ in the contents that they search and retrieve.

Search engines search the internet for your keywords and apply any behind the scenes algorithms to retrieve relevant results from across the web. Results can range in quality and tend to be numerous, making browsing all results highly unlikely. However, the relevance ranking tends to be quite good and the user interface is easy and intuitive.

Databases are more like a box; they are curated resources that contain specific items that have been intentionally added to them. Searches in databases will only retrieve items that have been indexed in them. This allows for a more focused search experience, with some level of quality control of contents and perhaps some level of discipline or format specific curation. There are also many more filters that can be helpful for narrowing your search, rather than just relying on keywords. A downside is that the search can exclude items that may be relevant to your topic if they haven't been included in the database. 

Using both search engines and databases is a good strategy for a more comprehensive search experience.

 

Library Single Search Tutorial

Search Techniques

Figure describing boolean search operators AND & OR, truncation using asterisks and wildcards, and phrase searching with quotation marks.

To narrow your search results try:

  • AND
  • Quotation marks

To expand your search results try:

  • OR
  • Truncation symbol, which may be an asterisk (*)

Accessing Resources Off-Campus

Use the VPN (Virtual Private Network) to access Lehigh's electronic resources from off-campus.  View the video to learn how.